Mormonism is one of several dozen different religions that started up around the same time during a period of American History referred to by some as “The Great Awakening” a period of religious fervor in which they teach that lost truths of the early Church were re-discovered, and restored by or through their own perticular prophet or founder. These groups of Restorationists include the SDA, Jehovah’s Witness’, and the Church of Christ, and several other groups who share similar concepts.

First most denied the Divinity of Christ, the existance of the Trinity, and they believed that the “True” Church had long since disappeared from the face of the earth, (Despite what Jesus promised us.) They all have a very anti-Catholic bent to them. If one holds that their teachings are the true teachings lost for centuries because the Catholic Church or some other group conspired to take power, it is easy to dismiss historical and archiological facts, and create your own counter history. Mormons and others have been taught a history different from what most reputable historians hold, and are entrusted with what they think is the sacred obligation to hold the rediscovered truth.

As I mentioned, above Mormons deny Jesus is the Second person of the Trinity. They believe that the God of this world was once a man, who has progressed to becoming a god and has populated the earth by having sexual relations with his wives. They believe that they are blood brothers of Jesus, and one of his brothers was Satan, who was not evil per-se, but upset that in their “pre-earth” life Jesus was picked over him to be the savior. So they don’t really believe in a devil who is eternal, and surmise that Satan will one day become a god himself. I’ve heard the story that Joseph Smith was shown the plates on which the BOM was written by the “Angel Moroni” There was also a document in early Mormon History called the Salamander Papers, which the Church of Mormon once accepted, but after they were proven as a forged document, now denies. I’ve never heard that they were given by a serpant, but then again, there are so many things that Mormonism has changed, that it’s hard to keep up.

Well when it comes to anti-Catholic bias, we read from the writings of the Third President of the Mormon Church…

[quote:27vs3rfn]”The present Christian world exists and continues by division. The MYSTERY of Babylon the great, is mother of harlots and abominations of the earth, and it needs no prophetic vision, to unravel such mysteries. [i:27vs3rfn]The old church is the mother[/i:27vs3rfn], and the protestants are the lewd daughters. Alas! alas! what doctrine, what principle, or what scheme, in all, what prayers, what devotion, or what faith, `since the fathers have fallen asleep,’ has opened the heavens; has brought men into the presence of God; and to the spirits of just men made perfect, and to an innumerable company of angels? The answer is, not any: `There is none in all christendom that doeth good; no, not one.” John Taylor, Times and Seasons, Vol.6, No.1, p.811[/quote:27vs3rfn]
He also wrote

[quote:27vs3rfn]”Babylon, literally understood, is the gay world; spiritual wickedness, the golden city, and the glory of the world, The priests of Egypt, who received a portion gratis from Pharaoh; the priests of Baal, and the Pharisees, and Sadducees, with their “long robes,” among the Jews, are equally included in their mother’s family, with the Roman Catholics, Protestants, and all that have not had the keys of the kingdom and power thereof, according to the ordinances of God.”
John Taylor, Times and Seasons, Vol.6, No.1, p.939[/quote:27vs3rfn]
He lovingly tells us…

[quote:27vs3rfn]”Both Catholics and Protestants are nothing less than the “whore of Babylon” whom the Lord denounces… as having corrupted all the earth by their fornications and wickedness. And any person who shall be so wicked as to receive a holy ordinance of the gospel from the ministers of any of these apostate churches will be sent down to hell with them,[/quote:27vs3rfn]
More than a few converts to the Catholic Church I know who were fromer Mormon’s regail tales of when they were in the Missionary Training Center preparing for their missionary service in the 1960’s and 1970’s that the Catholic Church was ridiculed and the Pope to be held in the highest contempt, with predictions that very soon Mormonism would take the place of the Catholic Church and wipe it off the face of the earth.

Now obviously if one believes his sect to be true, he must defend it. But these are some of the more tame quotes I’ve read, and stories from exmormons, lead me to believe that Mormonism is soft soaping their past and taking on new tactics in their “missionary” efforts.

We have to also remember that Mormonism developed after a time of general disbelief during a period of “revival” among Protestants in General, but was among groups like the SDA, Jehovah’s Wittness’ and others who denied the Traditional idea of the Trinity, and were competing for new converts. In rejecting much of what Christianity has taught for 2000 years and promoting new novel teachings, they began telling their converts that they re-discovered the lost teachings of a Church that once had existed but no longer held, amd needed to be restored. Once the contradiction to Christ’s promise that He would remain with the Church until the consumation of the world was pointed out, there appeared in their story a secret body of belivers who lived in hiding (at least according to these new religious sects)
for somewhere between 1600 and 1800 years until the prophets of each othe the new sects was chosen to re-discover and re-establish what Jesus had failed in.

Some of the other teachings odd to Mormonism include that Jesus and Satan were brothers in their pre-earth life, and Satan became upset and envious of Jesus when he was not chosen to become the messiah, causing emnity. The Jesus of Mormonism was like all of us in that he was one of many children of God who with his many wives was a product of a physical/sexual relationship. That like Jesus, and the “Father God” of this earth we can by following Mormonism become a god of our own planet and with our wives populate it too.

Mormonism claims, despite evidence to the contrary that these were the original doctrines of Jesus and the Apostles, but the Catholic Church suppressed them, and at some time during what we would call the era of the Early Fathers, that they rather than passing on the teachings of Christ that were recieved by them from the Apostles, they were Apostates and suppressed the truth. Too bad Jesus did not preserve the Church, nor the Holy Spirit guide it so that Joseph Smith during his wanderings through various religions and Masonry could be chosen to restore what nobody had ever heard of before.

Some of your critique of the Catholic Church would be valid, if only the sources you used were.

The reality is, despite what the Mormon Church or Protestant writers claim, Protestant Churches are not daughter Churches, but are sects which broke away from the Catholic Church because their founders denied various teachings preserved from the time of the Apostles by the Catholic Church.

Arius and others you cite were not valliant defenders of the secret underground Mormons who the LDS leadership claims went underground, but were various men, many who recieved a good Catholic education who went astray because of their own personal desires to accomodate the scriptures to their own way of believing things. If you wish to condemn me for using those who have defected from Mormonism, then you must do the same for those who have ruptured their own union with the Church founded by Jesus, and His vicar the Pope.

As a bit of background you seem unaware of, I too am a convert to the Catholic Faith, the information from former Mormons was not delivered at an Anti-Mormon bashfest, but in conversations with them at mixers for converts to the Catholic Faith. I did look into several religious groups including the LDS, but was drawn to the Catholic Church not by it’s claims, but rather because of it’s many detractors. I heard while a student at an SDA University all sorts of misrepresentations of the Catholic Faith, and history, half facts, which painted the Church as barbaric and Protestants as angelic saviors of civilization. So I investigated history, and the teachings of the Catholic Church and found out for myself the facts. I was not alone, I read the lives and Apologiae of J. H. Newman and others who started life anti-catholic and were persuaded by reading in history the real events, and not the distortions which they had been taught. I found that the Catholic Church did not invent any new doctrines, as did Mormonism and other sects. However when there was a crisis or question which arose by dissent, to prevent the fiathful from falling prey, it defined what had always been taught. Recent examples of the Immaculate Conception and the Assumption can be found in the Early Church both East and West, and became “hot topics” only when they were denied by some. Mormonism on the other hand has changed it’s teachings over time. It matters not if it was to gain Statehood for Deseret, later whittled down to become Utah, or the early teachings of Jesus marriage and children to the current idea that he remained single. Nor the current Anti-Tobbacco stance when in the first days of the “Tabernacle” in SLC the problem with chew staining the floors and causing problems was so bad that signs had to be placed around the building reminding men to spit their tobacco into the spittons. So we need some academic and historical honesty here.

In the case of William Tyndale, the protestant claim is that he was a giant champion by translating the Bible into the common language, and that very fact was an affront to the Catholic Church which was opposed to allowing the people to read the Bible on their own. However if you look into the facts of the times there were several translations of the Bible into English which the Church had approved. The problem with Tyndale was his tinkering with the Bible to say what he wanted it to. Tyndale influenced by others had the idea to change the Bible translations that existed and make them say what he believed, not belive what the Bible said. The reality is about 80% of the Mass is taken from the Scirptures, including the reading from the Bible which occur at every Mass. On Sundays and Holy Days, Catholics where also instructed in the Bible during the sermon. Most Cathedrals have stained glass windows and carvings depicting biblical scenes, because until recently most people were illiterate. Tyndale’s hatred of the Church and his comments about the Pope reflect more his prejudices than the reality of the Church.

The Catholic Church provided for the poor, part of the founding documents for Monastic communities all around Europe and into the colonial countries after Europe expanded required that the monks provide health care and feed, as well as clothe the needy in their area. The tracts of land overseen by the monastic communities not only fed the monks, but provided employment and food for the local people. This afforded not just basic social services but was able to keepin check the local civil authorities who did not always treat the people Spiritually monastaries preserved the Bible and other sacred writings before the printing press, and provided a haven of prayer, and sanctuary for those in need. If you read anti-catholic histories, you will see stories that decry the Church as always and everywere corrupt, overlooking the majority which were good and holy people, living in times we ourselves find hard to comprehend.

More later.